Free Three-Cornered Halo by Christianna Brand Page B

her own wit and held out her tiny glass for more Juanello.
    Tomaso di Goya, pouring the Juanello, judged that his moment had come. Tomaso had worked very hard on the problem since the hour of their parting for the collatione; and in no spirit of conspiratorial fun. He said now with a tremendous effect of dawning inspiration, that the business of roses was altogether too ‘natural’ for them, that the answer lay far more probably in his own skill and artifice. “If, for example … There is the thurible, the Cellini thurible, which only the Grand Duke uses, offering up incense before the Gospel is read, on fiesta days.… If, let us say, when he used the censer on some given day, not white clouds of incense arose but coloured clouds—pink clouds, rose-coloured clouds, the rose is the national flower of San Juan, you know—and the scent of roses …” He broke off. He asked, all casual, the question that he had brought her here to ask: the question which she alone (with the possible exception of Innocenta who also was familiar with Juanita’s writings) might be able to answer. “Is there any reference in the Diaries, Senorita, which might be taken—or twisted!—to suggest that Juanita would one day send some such sign?”
    Whether or not it had existed before, by the time Winsome Foley made her gay and tipsy way home that night, such a reference did indubitably appear in the Diary (Volume I). Tomaso was a dab hand at forging ‘facsimile’ handwriting on surfaces of silver and gold: so why not on a page of purple-lined paper as well?

CHAPTER SIX

    M R Cecil and Major Bull, introduced by Miss Cockrill, were delighted with one another. Mr Cecil had himself first come to San Juan ‘conducted’ by Odyssey Tours, and professed himself prodigiously entertained by the Major’s witty descriptions of his adventures with il grouppa (‘Oddity Tours, I call ’em, my dear feller …!’) Major Bull, on the other hand, listened enraptured to gossip from the world of haute couture, all in garbled Restorationese. Both parties, in fact, prided themselves on collecting ‘freaks’ and had collected one another at sight.
    The Sunday before the Fiesta di San Juan is a gala in itself, being known as Domenica di Boia or Hangman’s Sabbath. In early days, it was thought a proper attention to the bloodstained memory of the Founder, to abstain from all public executions during the week of celebrations that commemorate his translation into heaven. From this arose a custom of saving up prisoners during the months of August and September so that such as survived the intervening weeks in gaol might be transported—amid much rejoicing, for a nice hanging is irresistibly delightful to the Juanese—to a neighbouring island and there done to death en masse on a specially constructed gallow, (‘or eight-nooser,’ suggested Mr Cecil, informed of these origins). The custom has in these degenerate days lapsed for want of material; but the special Mass survives and the Sermone de Defunto, and the Juanese flock over to the island with their wives and families—it is very much Children’s Day—and carrying enormous picnic baskets; effigies are hanged with much ceremony and laughter and in the swinging shadows there is music and dancing as in days of yore. To this jamboree the Major must, of course, conduct his party; and Miss Cockrill and her niece and Mr Cecil declared their intention of going with them.
    Cousin Hat had agreed, with the rest of the party, to go to the Mass in the cathedral and from thence down to the quay to embark for the excursion; and, standing in her trampled straw hat and unlovely linen dress, a green-lined parasol of outmoded design stuck under her arm to the great inconvenience of her close-packed neighbours, she watched with the bland impertinence of the English churchgoer, the extraordinary carryings-on of those whose